Turner Place, Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, Va.

Eight concepts encourage community at Virginia Tech.

Faulkner says the aim in designing the facility was tied to the fact that the location is the first dining hall on the academic side of campus. Therefore, the team wanted to design a facility that would encourage high levels of use, not only by students but also the rest of the university community.

"For years our initiative was to have restaurant-quality food and provide a restaurant experience, so in this design we created destinations where we have these segemented restaurants under one roof," Faulkner says. "If you go to our Atomic Pizzeria, you are actually going through a threshold. Once you are in that area of the dining center you would feel like you are in an independent pizzeria."

It was a decision that brought the duo recognition at Monday night’s MenuDirections 2015 awards ceremony in Memphis, Tenn., which is part of FoodService Director magazine’s annual conference geared towards foodservice operators and suppliers.